It is political and comedic dogma now that Fox News is the opposite of a "fair and balanced" network. Their opinionators are stacked with conservative voices (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck - remember him?) and any attempt they have made at portraying a leftist voice has failed miserably (Where in the world is Alan Colmes?).

So it was surprising that this video was received so wildly by those in the media who know how things work on Roger Ailes's network. Ed Schultz of MSNBC said that the ad more or less confirms that Fox News is an "arm of the Republican Party." Noted but that's a little harsh.

What has made it an interesting story, though, is that it almost cost producer Chris White, the man behind the video, his job. Keyword: almost.

What happens when you mix together the crazy plot twists of Dan Brown, the conspicuous nature of Julian Assange and a right-hand serviceman as powerful as Alfred was to Bruce Wayne?

You have what the Times has called "perhaps the greatest breach in centuries in the wall of secrecy that surrounds the Vatican." Or, as the Italians like to call it, VatiLeaks (don't confuse this with WikiLeaks or a nasal flu medication).

Here's what's going down:

At the beginning of the week, journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published a book called Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI.The story was a ticking time-bomb for the smallest country in the world's credibility, accusing, by name, leaders of the Church who were involved in power struggles deep within the hierarchy.

This is like the Watergate of Italy; picture Nuzzi as both Woodward and Bernstein combined.

Nothing like a quick sex scandal to spice up a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

In a 73-page lawsuit filed by a Manhattan teacher, the President of the United Federation of Teachers prez Michael Mulgrew, known for his heated relationship with Bloomberg's Education Department, has been accused of having sex with a guidance counselor at the high school he used to teach at in Brooklyn.

Apparently, a custodian walked in on him and Emma Camacho-Mendez in the workshop and, once caught, they forced the worker and the principal of the school to keep their mouths shut. Also, according to the suit, Camancho-Mendez was rewarded with a UFT job paying $22,000 a year on top of her $85,000 guidance counselor salary.

However, as with every scandalous accusation, there is an overblown twist. And this one is serious: the lawsuit also name-drops Bloomberg, Chancellor Dennis Walcott and other high officials as knowing about the incident.

As President Obama touched down in Colombia for the Summit of Americas yesterday, where he and 33 other world leaders would meet to discuss the economies of the Western Hempishere, his Secret Service agents might have been elsewhere.

Last night, the Washington Post received a tip from Ronald Kessler, an ex-Post reporter and expert on the shadow force. It involved a scandalous story of the shadow force's members up to no good, in which twelve of them were taken off the job and replaced with others.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard F. Cebull's recent comments suggest that being a judge and having good judgment are two completely different things.

An e-mail forwarded to other chief judges by this interpreter of the law, obtained by the Great Falls Tribune on Wednesday, contains a crude joke aimed at President Barack Obama -- in which interracial marriage is compared to bestiality.

Earlier this morning, Cebullwrote an apology letter to Obama, accepting full responsibility and awkwardly concluding with: "Honestly, I don't know what else to say."

The notorious e-mail, titled with the seemingly innocuous subject line "A MOM'S MEMORY," was allegedly sent because he is "anti-Obama," not racist. Check out the text of the e-mail after the jump and decide for yourself.

Hipster clothier American Apparel has a new product out. It's a t-shirt that says "Teenagers Do It Better." Made in conjunction with a teen magazine called Electric Youth!, the t-shirts boast a 100% cotton design and domestic manufacturing. And of course, they're reminding people of the fact that CEO Dov Charney has been accused of sexual harassment by a number of very young women.

​A former reporter at the U.K. tabloid the Daily Mirror told the Independent that phone hacking was "endemic" during his time there, and that he would testify in a public inquiry ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron. Hipwell worked at the Mirror while current CNN anchor Piers Morgan was editor. Morgan has denied any knowledge of or involvement in phone hacking while the Mirror was under his editorship. More »

​Weinergate has now transitioned from bad to straight-up disastrous. Now, on top of everything else, he's admitting to having had contact with a teenage girl in Delaware. What this contact consisted of isn't clear, and there's no evidence that Weiner descended to Lisa Weiss-level raunchiness with the girl. He denies that anything inappropriate happened. More »

The New York Timeschimes in this morning on the big (?), bubbling scandal at the New York Police Department in which around two dozen officers in the Bronx could face allegations of making traffic violations disappear for friends, family or otherwise important people. While it's likely that no great harm was caused to any one person as a result of this systematic abuse of power, the Times still oddly spends its first two sentences in today's report couching the allegations in defensive language, noting "It is a practice that by all accounts has been around almost as long as the traffic laws...," and "In the annals of small-bore corruption, there are few things more commonplace..." Bullshit favoritism is still bullshit favoritism.

DNAinfo reports that the New York Police Department is gearing up to face "a police scandal the likes of which the city has not felt in decades," which could very well be a huge overreaction, but still sounds thrilling. The reality is far less exhilarating than it first seems, but still might reverberate, as "thousands of hours of recorded conversations" show cops fixing tickets, with at least 10 officers slated to be arrested in a few weeks following a grand jury probe, one that's been simmering for a while now. At least 24 cops are being kept from retiring until the investigation is over, according to today's report, with some left "trembling that their entire careers and pensions could be lost."